Finding Enthusiasm
by Ren Kayashima
Summary: Halloween Night and David Rossi and Derek Morgan are sitting in a restaurant and the conversation leads towards a lack of holiday enthusiasm on Morgans part. Can Rossi help with Morgan's holiday rut? One-Shot.


October 31, 2013:

Paesano's Italian restaurant was mostly filled with older men and women, who, most likely, were choosing to avoid the masses of small children who would be running through the many neighborhoods that surrounded D.C. These were mostly people who either had grown tired of always having to answer the door, or were just tired of Halloween and all of it's tricks or treats.

Derek Morgan looked around in dismay. Rossi managed to pick the only place in D.C. where all of the ladies searching for a little Halloween fun were absent. He longed for the pub that Rossi and he had gone to last year. Sexy cats, sexy monsters, sexy ladies in general. When Morgan said he had been looking for a little Halloween Honey last year, he had no idea that the dinner he shared with Rossi would turn into a repeat event. It seemed that the likeliness of this continuing into the next year and the years that followed was certain. It was fun, the company was great, and the conversation tended not to involve dead bodies and serial killers. It was really hard to argue with such a sweet deal, especially when Rossi picked up the tab.

As much as Derek had tried to embrace the spirit of Halloween, he still looked at the holiday as one of those days where the crazies came out in full force. That wasn't exactly something you wanted to think about when small children were getting candy and chocolate as they pranced around as faeries or struck a pose as a superhero. No matter how Morgan saw it, there was still someone out there who was going to turn the holiday into something that was a bastardization of the true spirit of Halloween. He hated the masks, he hated the real monsters that lurked around each corner, but most of all he hated the fact that it wasn't always black and white amidst the fun and cheer.

Still, Derek was determined to have a good time on Halloween. He was willing to attempt to look at the holiday with as much vigor as his coworkers and friends. Thinking about friends he smirked and shook his head. "So did you hear Reid's yearly history lesson centered around Halloween this time around?" Every year, Spencer Reid came to the BAU with something new to talk about that was somehow related to Halloween. It was the way the kid's brain was wired, and Derek somehow admired that Reid had the stock of Halloween History ready to blurt out at a moments notice.

"I think I missed it this time around," Rossi smiled as he started twirling his fork of pasta on a spoon. "Want to give me the Cliff Notes?"

"This year's history lesson is from Ireland. There's a Celtic Harvest Festival known as Samhain," Derek started, hoping he had pronounced it correctly. The name sounded like "sa-win", at least that's how Reid said it. "Samhain starts at sunset on October thirty-first and ends at sunset November first.

"The Celts believed that it was easier for spirits and faeries to cross from their realms and into ours during this time. Reid used that to talk about an Irish tale where the main character had to nail a corpse's feet to the ground to keep it from rising from the dead and walking among the living. I can't really remember the rest, I started wondering if Reid was going to put on that stupid Frankenstein mask."

"Frankenstein's Monster," Rossi corrected. "So the Celts had zombies, huh?"

Morgan chuckled taking a sip of his beer. "Guess so," he answered. "You know, Reid, he really loves this stuff. He goes all out for Halloween. I kind of wish I had that much enthusiasm for a holiday." Morgan stabbed at a chicken stuffed tortellini on his plate.

Rossi shrugged. Now that the BAU was around, Thanksgiving and Christmas seemed to be his thing. Interestingly enough, both had been holidays that he had thought permanently ruined for him. Then he had a family in the BAU and sure enough, he was cooking turkeys every November and putting up a Christmas tree the day after. That's just the way things worked now, and he always tried to do things to the best of his ability so if he could have a party with the team, then why the hell not?

"Maybe you just have to find a reason to be enthusiastic about a holiday," Rossi suggested. "When you were a kid, was there a holiday that you always looked forward too?"

Morgan smiled at the question. "Up until my dad died, we would always do fireworks on the fourth of July. He would put together these grand ideas and as soon as the sun would set, colors would illuminate the sky. I always looked forward to what he would do next."

"Maybe you can continue that tradition," Rossi said. "Garcia kind of commandeered Easter with Henry and Jack, so maybe you can have the fourth, you can plan some sort of big show like that ones you're dad used to put together."

Morgan mulled over the thought for a bit and nodded. "Can we hold it at your place?" he asked.

"Why does everything have to happen at my house?" Rossi asked with a small smile.

"Because it's not a house, it's a mansion and your backyard hosted a small wedding. Don't tell me it can't also host a firework extravaganza." Morgan laughed before finishing off his plate. "It was your idea, Rossi. You had to see it coming."

Rossi grumbled slightly, but Morgan noticed the smile. Morgan leaned back in his seat as he thought about what could be done for Fourth of July. The good news was… He had a lot of time to think about it."

0o0o0o0

Author's Note: So this was supposed to have been written last year. Nebula2 asked me to write a one-shot with Rossi and Morgan after the Halloween Episode in Season 8. I believe that episode was "The Good Earth". But I sat on it for a year, and now it's here, and probably different than what she wanted, but it's something and I'm actually really sorry it took so long to write.


End file.
